Questions tagged [struggling-students]
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what could be some replacement language for the term "spoon feeding"
In some cultures, there is an expression of "spoon feeding" type of instruction, where the teacher shows how to do steps to a problem, and then students are assigned minor variants thereof. ...
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How can I improve my Retake Policy?
I teach Pre-Calculus at a public high school in the United States. This school year, I allowed my students to retake any assessment regardless of how they performed on their first attempt. However, ...
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Montessori mathematics for HS/college students
My children attend a Montessori school (as did I when I was a child), and I have visited several other Montessori schools and spoken with their teachers. Numerous times I've had Montessori teachers ...
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Advice on how to tutor a twelve year old that starts to cry?
I have a new math pupil. She is an emotional 12 year old girl who starts to cry when she doesn't understand something.
Her father said she is sensitive. I was asked to do more praising and encouraging ...
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How to train facility with numbers?
I have a student (age 14) who is valiantly striving to improve his algebra. He knows the "rules", and he more-or-less manages to apply them correctly, and hence is generally able to tackle ...
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A smart student that struggles in exams
I am tutoring a grade 8 student that failed his math exam, but surprisingly it seems that he is more than smart enough: he understands everything I say really quickly, and he knows most of the ideas ...
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Textbooks with solutions and catering to different circumstances
Questions: Are we really taking students into account FULLY when writing textbooks for various areas? Also, are we being unintentionally elitist or dismissive when neglecting to take a more humble ...
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How do you coach students who often make small errors?
Some students are prone to making small calculation errors. Not errors in understanding, but errors like adding or multiplying integers incorrectly, or dropping a negative sign. Unsystematic errors in ...
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Am I responsible to help a student who does not understand/know some prerequisites of a course?
I am teaching Calculus III this semester and a student signed up for this course after completed Calculus I and II in a different institution.
I quickly realised that this student does not understand ...
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Struggling with Math Skills and When to Quit
Until this point I have felt inspired to study math and looked forward to my classes. But lately I've been having difficulty with my math skills, where I keep making errors over problems I had ...
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Math undergrad courses [closed]
Awhile back I was very weak with my trigonometry so I came to this site asking for help, and it turned out the few answers I got made a huge difference. I excelled at the trigonometry section in my ...
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Why teaching undergraduate-level mathematics is so complicated? [closed]
Many of my professors are experts in their field, but they are just not able to teach. I mean: most of the times they are confusing, don't follow a logic sequence in their speech or keep a superior ...
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Teaching a student who refuses to learn
How to deal with a student who refuses to learn?
I've met a few of those over the years as a a private-class math teacher. They don't want to learn anything about the subject. Some of them are just ...
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Is it the college teacher's responsibility to help the struggling students? [closed]
I understand that at high school level or below, teachers usually spend extra effort helping those students who are struggling. However, how about at college/university level? Here are two ...
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Is There Such Thing as Learning Disability in Math?
I am currently tutoring a student who is really lacking in math. At first I thought she was just resistant; perhaps she thought that her teacher had no choice but to pass her. What truly stunned me ...
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Ideas for high-school proof class?
I have a math degree and have been hired to teach a proof class at a summer program. Our goal is to help the students learn the material they need for school (they take an algebra class separately) ...
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Teaching undergraduates who expect a high-school-like learning environment
tl;dr: Some students expect to be told "what's on the test", to memorize and then move on. What can be done to change how they learn while teaching them what to learn?
Context: Introductory, ...
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How to teach a weak student?
I am tutoring a 9th grade student. And he is terribly weak in mathematics. He doesn't remember the multiplication tables, can't divide efficiently. Doesn't know how to proceed with solving a ...
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Addressing fundamental math errors
I am looking for ways I can correct fundamental math mistakes.
I am currently tutoring someone taking a course which is a cross between first year calculus and grade 12 functions. In high school he ...
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How to engage low-level students?
I'm a recent graduate in my first year of teaching. I teach secondary students, and I have found that some low-level students are not listening in class. They seem to have given up and stopped trying. ...
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I'm worried that my struggles with calc 2 mean I won't be able to become a professor later
I have just turned 18 and am in calculus BC (calc 1 & calc 2). I most certainly grasp and understand the concepts of calc 1 however every once in a while a I seem to struggle with the calc 2 work. ...
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What fraction of the population is incapable of learning algebra?
In the comment thread of this academia.SE question, the following generated some strong reactions:
My very different (community-college) perspective is that the math discipline will end up as a ...
user507
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SMSG Materials Available
Do you know anyone or any institution interested in accepting a donation of a relatively complete set of SMSG Materials?
I post offering to donate a small collection of School Mathematics Study Group ...
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Students who fall behind
Throughout my mathematical education I came across a very common problem. Essentially what happens is that a student will fail to properly learn a certain concept and will fall behind. Each year that ...
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Is there a meeting place for fraction education stakeholders?
Is there a meeting place where all fraction education stakeholders (students, teachers, parents, researchers, fraction software developers) meet and collaborate? If not, do you have an advice on ...
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At what point is it a disservice to pass someone on to the next math class?
Background information
I'm currently teaching common core geometry, which assumes that a student has algebraic knowledge coming in. Clearly, we shouldn't expect students to retain everything from ...
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How to help my students form study groups during office hours?
As a TA I always try to get students to help each other during office hours, because when I was in college I never had people to work with, and I strongly believe college is a lot more fun if you have ...
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How to visually demonstrate basic algebra
I'm a private tutor working with a 7th grader who is struggling with solving equations. Given a simple equation, he is able to solve it using a formulaic procedure, but it is very obvious that he has ...
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What should I do if I have a student 'hiding' their working out?
I recall in one of my classes earlier this year that I had a student who always 'hid' their working out from me when I walked around to see how well they're going with the question. The usual practice ...
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How do you teach a class with one struggling student?
One of my classes has about 15 people in it. Everybody else is going okay except for precisely one student. If it was 2, that'd be fine because I can pair them up.
However, with this student, I am ...
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What to do when all the other teachers fail?
I'm teaching first semester algebra, the majority of the students share the rest of the classes. Sometimes I want to take examples from other courses so they can see that everything intertwines, but ...
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When handing back exams, what should we tell our students about the distribution of exam scores?
I've seen a variety of approaches to the day we hand back our exams.
Show every score listed in order, so every student knows exactly how they compare to others
Show an aggregated histogram, for ...
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What can be done to instill good habits in students?
This question might sound vague, but I'm really just looking for particular examples that worked for you.
From my experience, it seems like a large portion of "weak" students remain weak despite ...
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How do I motivate my students to go to office hours?
I'm currently TAing a Linear Algebra class where a significant portion of the class is struggling, oftentimes getting marked down on homeworks or tests because they misunderstand some concept (rather ...
user37